In Massey v R [2013] ACTCA 5 the appellant, convicted of murder in a street stabbing, contended that it was a misdirection for a trial judge to tell a jury that she could not rely on self-defence if she had been the original aggressor and her aggression had not ceased. Support for this was said …
Tag: common law
Help, in the name of the law!
One of the reasons I have a copy of Archbold Criminal Pleading and Precedent is that it occasionally contains useful and even interesting commentary that can't be easily found elsewhere on common law offences, especially those that are at least archaic (which is nearly all of them), if not completely esoteric. (I'm not completely nuts …
BA v The Queen [2012] VSCA 285: adducing evidence of a witness’s bad character
The UEA represents only a partial codification of the rules of evidence. Knowing whether the Evidence Act 2008 covers the field on a topic, or just introduces an alternative statutory pathway to the admission or exclusion of evidence, isn't easy. The stated intention of the ALRC or VLRC is helpful, but not the final word …
Continue reading BA v The Queen [2012] VSCA 285: adducing evidence of a witness’s bad character
BA v The Queen [2012] VSCA 285: adducing evidence of a witness's bad character
The UEA represents only a partial codification of the rules of evidence. Knowing whether the Evidence Act 2008 covers the field on a topic, or just introduces an alternative statutory pathway to the admission or exclusion of evidence, isn't easy. The stated intention of the ALRC or VLRC is helpful, but not the final word …
Continue reading BA v The Queen [2012] VSCA 285: adducing evidence of a witness's bad character
Where is the value in SACStat?
The Sentencing Advisory Council's new SACStat program (tweeted about by my learned colleague a few days ago) is interesting, colourful and fairly intuitive. Searches of dispositions in the Magistrates' Court are recent (2009 - 2011) and statistically significant (only offences for which at least 50 examples are available will return a result). They are an …